Skillshare Revenue – Annual Revenue and Business Strategy

Skillshare has to pay their tutors to be able to have the amount of teaching content they do on their site, but with the prices (especially of the annual plan) being so low, how are they making any money? 

Well, their revenue would tell you they are actually really successful.

If you decide to look into Skillshare and how far they have come in recent years, you will discover that they have increased in value and revenue quite a great deal in the last two years. 

But, how much are they making to be able to continue doing what they are doing in the long term? 

Curious to find out about Skillshare revenue? So are we, that is why we decided to look into it.

Keep reading to find out about Skillshare’s revenue. (Also, read our other article ‘Interesting Skillshare Statistics Before You Start‘.)

Estimated Skillshare Revenue & Valuation

Sadly we cannot provide any figures set in stone as things are always changing, but we can give you an estimated average to provide you with an idea of Skillshare’s value and revenue. 

They have an estimated annual revenue that totals at currently $143.5 million per annum. They also received $28 million in venture funds back in July 2018.

Skillshare also has a total estimated revenue per employee at an impressive $200,200. 

It may not be as excessive as some major companies, but when we consider what Skillshare does and who they are, these are much higher numbers than you may expect. 

They have a total funding of $2.5 million! 

Success is also often seen in the growth of employees. They now have around 717 employees, and actually grew their employee count by 11% last year.

Proving impressive rates of growth, but not so excessive it may warn of improper business focus.

Information Of Competitors: Which Is Doing The Best?

There are 4 primary competitors that Skillshare faces. These are Udemy, MasterClass, Coursera, and Domestika. 

Udemy has seen revenue of 490.3 million with over 6,600 employees and $311.4 million in funding.

Masterclass has 8.8 million in revenue with over 600 employees and a 33% employee growth rate (3 times Skillshares’ growth rate) (see also ‘How Many Employees Does Masterclass Have?‘). 

Domestika has $285.9 in revenue with over 1,300 employees, but an employee growth rate closer to Skillshare at 15%. Finally, Coursera is at $383.6 million with over 3700 employees and an employee growth rate of 31%. 

We would assume that both Udemy and Coursera are the most successful of all of these, whereas Skillshare sits somewhere between Masterclass and Domestika. 

For this reason, we can say that Skillshare is doing well. They may not have the revenue or the employee headcount like Udemy or Coursera does, but Skillshare is quite a niche.

They are doing better than Masterclass though, in terms of revenue and employees, so they are highly rated! 

Revenue Of Instructors For Skillshare

We must also consider the instructors as well for a full picture.

Obviously, any business which employs people to provide their content needs to ensure that the Skillshare instructor gets a big enough pay for providing this material. 

However, the teachers on Skillshare will get paid much like Skillshare themselves do, via royalties and referral revenues, so it is important that they increase engagement. 

Earning Royalties

A primary source of income for instructors on Skillshare is their royalties, royalties will be calculated based on how much time premiums students spend on your sources. 

For each month, 30% of the total Skillshare membership revenue goes into a pool of royalties and the instructors will be paid off of this. 

So, if your class gets 5% of the minutes watched by members, you receive around 5% of the royalty fund. Note that this does not mean instructors are paid in percentage per minute. 

A Skillshare teacher can make more than the average full-time worker in the United States and can earn money as much as $2,000 per month, but they usually make a lot less.

This success story is only true in some extreme cases, like Josiah (A YouTuber with a famous YouTube channel). 

How Skillshare Makes Money?

But, what about the company itself? Well, it makes money in a similar way to the teachers.

They make money through the subscription revenue, which part goes to the instructors, and the rest returns to the company and goes to employees. 

Skillshare has a revenue model which makes money via subscription revenue and via referral fees from recommendations of its service to users. 

Let’s look at each of these individually.

Subscription Revenue 

Skillshare will make a majority of its money via the subscription service that they offer.

Since Skillshare no longer has a free option, and you can only pay monthly or annually for their service after your free trial, the online learning community is the main source of income for them. 

You can either choose their monthly plan at $32 per month, or you can choose their annual plan at $168. If you buy Skillshare Teams then you pay $159 per year per user. 

A majority of this will go into Skillshare, and then instructors will make money, being paid from it based on how many users happen to have spent how much time on their classes learning new skills.

Referral Fees

Skillshare has the other way of making money in the referral fees that they collect when they bring a form of business to affiliates or partnering companies. 

An example of this would be their partnership with Adobe.

Whenever a user learns about a class such as one run by Adobe, they will show Adobe discounts and offers, and when a user gets an Adobe product from this, Skillshare gets paid through this. 

This is technically a form of affiliate marketing. 

Overall

Skillshare is not the most successful online learning platform in terms of revenue, but they do have a good scheme that helps them to build revenue and keep its revenue sustainable. 

They also have a good payment plan for their instructors to ensure that everyone is paid fairly.